Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

88 “Here’s about the run. They are picked at random.” He handed them over to Dockery. “Aboard the packet is a kanaka. I-call him ‘Skull,’ short for scullion. He’s a good all-around man and does all the cooking and most of the other work. He doesn’t require much sleep; he’d been sleeping all his life before he met me. So he does most of the night steering, too. He and another like him and myself brought the boat here from Apia. ‘The other was no good, so he’s paid off. John, my boy, it’s only about one- fifth of the way around the world from here to the Minerva Reefs. The boat is small, and has a short cruising-radius on gasoline, but she can be fixed with a jury rig and a jib, and she will get there, in time. We'll have to be savages for a couple of years, living mostly on breadfruit and such from Pylstaart, but after that we can come back and live like most anything we want to. What I want to know now is, are you, or are you not, on?” Dockery was standing now, the muscles in his bare arms and shoulders pressing out like cords. Dockery had no imagina- tion, but Minot had made things so clear that he didn’t need one at this moment. For the first time that he could remember he was a little nervous. That is, he called it nervousness, but it was really only excite- ment and an irrepressible enthusiasm. Minot smiled and offered his hand, and the two stood looking at each other for a moment. “The split is fifty-fifty, John, taking out of your share half the initial expense,which I’m putting up now. Westart in two days, so don’t get killed in the mean time. But I guess you couldn’t if you wanted to.” Minot fished in his pockets for some currency. “Get yourself an outfit.” Easily, then, the matter was settled, as one of the city might buy a bond or casually plan how to sell more shoes or tooth-paste. “Inevitable white man!” ga) 1 HREE men in a boat occasionally cast a glance backward at the fading "25 shore-line of Santa Rosa Island. The fact that Nuka Hiva, in the upper Marquesas, would offer their next sight of land and that it was some twenty-three hundred miles away, seemed not to perturb any of them. This was natural, however, Adventure for had they been of the variety to give ita thought, they wouldn’t be making the trip at all. Skull was preparing chow, and Minot had the helm. Dockery sat on a stool in the tiny after cockpit, spitting over the rail and passing a new Marble blade over a scrap of carborundum. He was particularly proud and careful about this new purchase, which was the most expensive item he had bought in preparation for his two-years’ jaunt. Dockery believed thoroughly in the gospel of the knife for one who makes his living at the bottom of the sea. The blade must be of a certain length and balanced just so. It must be sharpened daily, whether used or not, thus insuring a constant razor- edge and needle-point. The scabbard, which Dockery took all apart and made over, he used after a method all his own. It was fastened under the bulge of the thigh muscle, almost at the back of his leg, and strapped down at both ends. From this position Dockery could whip it out with surprizing swiftness— whether he was swimming along the bottom or standing on deck. He had discarded shirt and trousers for short woolen trunks, so the blade was always handy. Not, however, that he expected to use it on his partners, for he had developed a strong respect and almost a liking for Minot, and Skull was just a harmless lackey, but it was part of the job and there- fore part of him when on the job. _ Minot was more careful as to appearance and wore dungarees; also, at much derision from Dockery, he affected a yachting-cap, which Dockery saluted gravely time after time, much to his own amusement. All of which has little to do with the fact that the packet sailed casually on day after day, across the wastes of the misnamed Pacific. Misnamed, speaking generally, but perhaps it is an injustice in this case. Had any one else tried it out, it would have undoubtedly lashed itself into a fury at such effrontery. But not for Dockery, Minot and Skull. Maybe it felt they belonged there, or else it realized the task would take too much effort. Whatever the reason was, the Pacific lived nobly up to its name, and for four delightful weeks mirrored the equa- torial sun and sponsored a fair east breeze that kept things cooled and saved gasoline. One fine day Dockery stood on the bow Gomichbooks \ ~ (E)